I mentioned earlier this week a youth group conversation about Mary Magdalene and demon possession. There are so many different ways of understanding what demon possession might have been about and what Mary’s demons might have been.
I’ve had demons explained away and described lots of different ways.
Illness.
Mental disorders and illness.
Cultural misunderstandings and differences.
And I started our conversation by talking about some of those things and how they might have applied to Mary Magdalene.
Then, I asked the question if the seven demons were cast out all at once, or in seven different encounters. We talked about the Gerasenes demoniac who had a “legion” of demons, all cast out at once. And one young woman very astutely pointed out they they must have been some real spiritual force because they entered the pigs and thousands of them died right then and there.
We don’t often see demons and angels in our world today, but we also aren’t looking. Or maybe, like some of us in this world are color blind, maybe the problem is that we are spiritually blind. Maybe we simply aren’t built to see spiritual forces in the world today.
Full props to our Director of Youth and Christian Inspiration, Mr. Vaughn, who pointed out that in John’s account of the resurrection, John and Simon Peter ran to the tomb and saw nothing but linen scraps lying inside, but Mary Magdalene saw the angels.
As a woman who had been possessed by demons, she had the spiritual sight to see the angelic presence, where John and Simon Peter saw emptiness and darkness.
The world is full of things I can’t comprehend or understand. Who am I to say that those who see auras or who sense the spiritual forces of evil are mistaken? What if I simply cannot see what they can?